Rocks Inside
by EaglesFeather17
Summary: One-shot: Germany can't sleep well. His past never seems to let go of his mind and even haunts him in his dreams. A sudden noise from the outside wakes him up and his brother is gone. Germany investigates anxiously. What he finds is just...


**Rocks Inside**

Snow was falling heavily on the concrete streets of the capital of Germany, Berlin. The snowflakes did not melt when they touched the frozen ground. Snow piles, built by gusts of wind, gathered at doorsteps and on windowsills. The view was not clear in the least, the only visible signs were the street lamps which seemed to break the wall of snow. To some people, they showed the way to warmth, but it was night time, so all shops were closed, and all doors were shut if not locked.

Lonely people, as they were trying not to lose control of their vehicles, sighed in annoyance to the advice of the speaker on the radio to drive carefully. Faint Christmas carols coming from citizens who celebrated an early Christmas and were thus wide awake in the morning, made the melancholic atmosphere of night a little brighter.

In a well-warmed house, which was situated a little outside the normally busy part of the city, slept a man in his humble bed. He was snoring lightly, he always did that when sleeping on his back. His mouth was opened a little as the snoring sounds were escaping his lips. The blanket was spread over his muscular form and his usually carefully maintained blond hair laid tousled on his compressed pillow.

Actually, the bed he rested in was meant for two people, but the man stubbornly kept to only occupying one side. Otherwise he felt greedy and he did not want to fall back into old habits. The crimes he had committed were still fresh on his mind, even though they had happened far back in the past. He had been a very different person back then and his leader who had told him to execute all his orders made him be only partly at fault for the genocides in Europe.

He still remembered how at the end of the Second World War all surrounding nations were looking at him with pure hate shining in their eyes. Of course, they didn't want to hear a word about his pleas of innocence, branding guilt further into his heart. He realized that it was his self-hatred would be a companion for the rest of his existence. The shadow of the past would always be there to haunt him, to remind him that he cannot change the crimes he had committed.

But the day he was separated from his elder brother was the day he lost even the last bit of hope to recover. The Berlin Wall divided his heart in two and he became known as West Germany, whereas his brother became the GDR under Soviet Russian rule. Decades of separation destroyed the little optimism he had, each passing year made his heart sink deeper and deeper, until he thought that it was completely lost, lost in an ocean of fury, fear and confusion.

The desperately anticipated day the wall fell gave him back the power to welcome his brother, to hug him again after a felt century. He thought the moment they reunited would make both of them feel whole again. They were in need of love to fill the holes in their hearts which were caused by bombs and war. He remembered how he tore down the mocking wall, hammering it to dust that would be blown away in the passing of time, forever forgotten.

But soon he noticed that the injuries could not be so easily cast aside. The moment he saw his brother, he felt his heart stop for a moment. The tall blond just looked at him, like one would at a stranger who faintly reminded them of someone they knew.

The pale man was thin and weak, struggling not to fall over. His trembling knees were shaking as he tried to step to his little brother, who, seeing that his relative would never make it to him on his own, caught him in his strong arms. Both cried their hearts out as they held on to another, like they would have to go back into the solitude they had just broken out of any second.

The moment the smaller man fell unconscious in his younger brother's arms out of pure exhaustion, was the moment the blond was confronted with reality. While his economy had grown, his brother's had stayed at a constant low. Communism was never the right answer, as well as the surveillance of East German citizens by the Stasi, a secret organization of the state to ensure the power of the government.

In the end, the tall German organized a flat in the western part of Berlin, not wanting to cross over to the East, not yet. Because of his elevated position in the West German government, he did not need much time to place his brother on a fluffy bed in one of the best hotels the city had to offer. A few days later, the man made sure his elder brother was in the right condition to endure the flight to Bonn without complications.

In Bonn, the capital of West Germany during the Cold War, he hovered over the weak man like a hawk. To his horror, it soon became evident that due to the dissolution of the GDR and the carried frailty of the final dissolution of Prussia in 1947, his brother would not be able to walk again for a long time to come.

The taller man tried to make to best out of it by going on walks with his brother tied to a wheelchair, always accompanied by his three dogs. He made sure he ate properly and regularly and saw to his medical as well as physical needs. His brother protested mostly, claiming that the care taking should be the other way around, but the blond was having none of it.

When strength came back into his body, slowly but gradually, the younger even took up the organization of workouts, like he used to do for an Italian friend back then. With such care and attention, the elder grew stronger with each year, but he was convinced that he would never ever gain back the power he had once possessed.

Back in the present, the blond twitched in his sleep. A sudden sound coming from the outside woke him up slowly. With a hazy mind, he massaged his eyes and sat up in his bed, the blanket falling from his chest to his hips. He had always been a light sleeper, by being in the military for long he took up the habit of waking up early.

Looking at the digital watch on the small nightstand, which read three o'clock in the morning, even he was surprised at the earliness of his waking. He shook his head, somehow, he was wide awake, going back to sleep would have been pointless. But maybe he should lay down again, considering he had to go to work in a few hours and rest was what he needed for the day.

Glancing around, his view stopped at the window. He got out of bed and walked towards the cold glass. There were snowflakes plastered on its surface from the outside. With wonder he stared into the nightly sky and followed falling snow flakes with his eyes. He smiled slightly at his garden, grass and plants were wrapped in cocoons of thick snow and the world looked like it stopped moving. Gilbert would be out of himself as soon as he saw that.

With a last glance, he walked to his dresser and opened a drawer, containing orderly folded and ironed clothes. Putting on grey jogging trousers, he bound the waistband to a tidy bow. As soon as his feet were hidden in neat slippers, Ludwig rested his arms on his hips, being satisfied with tidiness. He wondered how he could use the time he had left until he had to leave for work in the most efficient way.

Where was the point of wasting such a precious good anyway? He could lay the table or wait until Gilbert was awake to make him do it. Or he could read a new science book, or continue his research on Roman culture, there were so many opportunities! Deciding to do the latter, the German went down the staircase to the book shelves in the spacey living room. He grabbed the history books he was looking for and his notepad, complete with a holder for a pencil.

The moment he sat down on the couch, he heard the peculiar sound again. It reminded him of something falling or slamming against a wall. Disturbed by the noise, he positioned his notepad on the coffee table and stood up. Not exactly knowing the source of the sound, his first suspicion was his brother, who had taken up the habit of being more of a nuisance each day. When multiplying the growth of his annoying-ness with the amount of days he had been alive, out would come an unmeasurable number which described Prussia's current degree of aggravation.

Ludwig opened the door to the basement and called: "Gilbert, stop whatever you're doing right now and come upstairs." After moments of silence, the blond wanted to check on his brother, but he found the room empty.

Back in the living room with worry spreading in his gut he called again, but nobody answered. The man searched the whole house, behind every door and in every flower pot. Where could the reckless albino be?

Growing anxious, the tall man put on boots and a furred winter jacket and opened the door to his garden. An icy gust of wind greeted him as he stepped through the deep snow. Waving the flashlight, he came to the sad conclusion that his garden had never seemed so huge to him like in that moment. "Gilbert, wo bist du?! Das ist nicht lustig!", he cried.

Silence ruled the atmosphere, until a faint scratchy voice spoke up from his far left. "Ehhh…, West? Can you help me up? It's kinda comfy but I'm freezing my ass off."

With wide opened blue eyes, Ludwig's head snapped into the direction the voice had come from. He walked around the corner of the house, near the garage his Volkswagen and BMW were safely parked in. Seeing a long pile of snow on the ground, which looked quite out of place in the garden, he advanced towards it.

He came face to face with his brother, and by pointing the flashlight right into the other man's face, he saw that his nose and cheeks were tinted bright red. To Ludwig's reassurance, he noticed that Gilbert was wearing winter gear completed with a scarf, a warm hat and earmuffs. Seriously, he would have thought to find him clothed in nothing more than a t-shirt and shorts (preferably the ones with small yellow birds printed on).

Crossing his arms over his chest the tall blond stared down on the man laying on the freezing ground with cold eyes. "How can you be so reckless! And how did you come up with such a stupid idea as to go outside in the middle of the night?!"

Gilbert groaned and rolled his red eyes. "West, save it. I saw the snow and then nothing could hold me back! I had fun, you see?" He pointed at the tousled snow next to him and in the shine of the pocket lamp Ludwig could make out wonky snow balls and weirdly formed shapes.

"What's that? Your playground?", Ludwig huffed.

"Yes.", Gilbert replied surly, still in his unmoving position.

The younger brother stepped over him and picked up one of the peculiar snowballs. Rolling it in his sadly uncovered hands, he almost let out a snort. Snickering to himself, he turned around and held it up in the light for his brother to see. "It looks a bit like your pet bird, but I am sure it's not as wonky and ill-proportionated as this one!"

"Ha-ha, very funny. Try making perfect birds out of snow in complete darkness. Now help me up!"

Completely ignoring his brother, Ludwig proceeded further into the back of the garden. With professional lamp-waving he observed the directionless footsteps in the snow. Holding up the flashlight, he saw mashed snow on the wall of the garage.

Ah, so that had to be source of the sounds from before. Rubbing the snow off the wall he groaned loudly for his brother to hear. "Did you put _rocks_ inside the snowballs?!" The stones were even still embedded in the wall!

"As I said, I didn't have a fancy flashlight like you! And stop crying about your damned walls, for that I lost two snow birds! You know, I wanted to show them what flying is like, so I threw them. I wanted to throw them as far as I could, but DO YOU KNOW HOW GUILTY I FEEL?! I ACCIDENTALLY MURDERED THEM BECAUSE I SMASHED THEM AGAINST THE FREAKIN' WALL!"

"And because of that you are now sulking on the ground?", Ludwig deadpanned as came back to his brother. Although he already knew the answer to his question.

"Yes." Came the quiet reply his brother mumbled into his scarf. The blond shook his head in amusement. Sometimes it was really bizarre to know that his brother used to kill thousands of men back in the days and was now killing himself over some snow.

"Come on, I'll help you up." Two hands touched, but instead of the standing man pulling, it was the one laying on the ground.

With sheer surprise, Ludwig fell into the snow next to his brother who only laughed in his weird way. "What did I teach you? Never let your guard down, you are now surrounded by an army of snow birds! Surrender!"

 **Author's Note:**

Yes, it's a silly pointless little one-shot again. Sorry that it's another kinda sad story, but I have a tendecy to always write such emotional things. I should try to write some more humorous stuff for a change. XD Ideas are always welcome! (As long as it's no shipping and weird... topics). I also had the thought of writing more historical fanfictions...?

This story was inspired by my friend's dream and I thought the idea was so cuuutttteee. Thank you so much, guys, for reading my other stories, like Listen to your Elders. I never expected so many people to read it and like it!

Please give me some feedback and thanks for reading!

English is NOT my native language.


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